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I’ve always loved clematis ever since I started gardening – a wall or fence completely smothered in its blooms is a lovely sight to behold. As a garden designer, I include them in planting plans for clients quite a lot – depending on the individual garden (and the garden owner ) - because, if chosen carefully, clematis can make a glorious addition to any garden.

What a mixed bag gardeners have had this spring! Some of the best spring weather for years, extra time for many of us to tackle garden jobs – and the closure of our garden centres, nurseries and hardware stores, just as the growing season gets underway. A time of changes, confusion and contradictions in all aspects of our lives – when we’ve turned to our gardens for distraction and comfort, and counted ourselves lucky to have them.

If last week’s Gardenwise was about keeping calm and carrying on with gardening, this one is about keeping calm and actually doing very little at all. To absorb maximum benefits from the garden, you need to cultivate the art of doing absolutely nothing at all. Let me explain.

If my inbox is anything to go by, a lot of people are doing a lot of thinking about their gardens just now. No surprises there, as the not – exactly – a - lockdown got underway just as spring was entering its most energetic phase. With at least another week or two of staying home ahead of us, formerly neglected gardens are being lavished with more TLC in a fortnight than they would normally get in a whole year. A wander round the garden centre, checking out the new spring arrivals, followed by a coffee stop, is a real treat at this time of year under normal circumstances. But with ‘normal’ fast receding to the realm of ‘once upon a time’, the shape of shopping has ‘changed, changed utterly’- and a new kind of resourcefulness is born.

“A flower is a weed with an advertising budget” says Rory Sutherland in his brilliant book ‘Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense’. If you think about it, he’s absolutely right. What we call a weed is a plant just like any other, with a job to do – and the leaves, flowers and seeds to do it – but if it decides to grow where we don’t think it should, we call it a weed, and give it its marching orders. And all because it doesn’t have an advertising budget, basically: Its flowers and foliage are not considered suitable garden material, because the ‘budget’ didn’t run to eye-catching size, shape or colour.

If there’s one thing guaranteed to lift the spirits, it’s bright seasonal colour in containers at doors and windows. With a little planning, you can have pretty things in pots and windowboxes all year round, and they’re perfect for places where space is tight.

Yes, you read that right – we’re talking about underwear for the garden this week. The importance of good underpinnings can’t be overestimated, and this is the time of year when you need to be getting them in place. The right supports for your plants will not only make them look good, but by keeping each plant upright and in its place, everyone gets their fair share of sunlight, air and water – so each plant can do its job and make your garden sing.

I can’t imagine my garden without birds, and I love each and every one of them, from the perky robins who perch a few feet away and eye you up speculatively, to the pair of collared doves that land together every so often, exchange a few mildly puzzled coos and lumber off again, looking confused. By encouraging birds of all kinds into the garden, you’re giving it the best possible chance of being a healthy, balanced ecosystem – they may come for the food you’ve left out, but they’ll stay to hoover up greenfly, slugs and lots of other garden ‘pests’ that have designs on your plants.

Welcome back to Gardenwise! As the days get longer and the sun gets stronger, it’s time to look outside and reconnect with the garden. We need it now more than ever – it’s not only a distraction from the news headlines, it grounds, calms and soothes and helps give us hope for the future. As the plants wake up and the birds get busy, a little time spent tending to the garden now will pay huge dividends – in lots of ways.

Regular readers will know how much I love my feathered garden visitors – and I know from chatting to many of you that you do too – so you can imagine how horrified I was to learn recently that we could be helping to cause the deaths of millions of these tiny creatures every time we do a grocery shop.